I’m an author, journalist and one of the UK’s social media pioneers. Here I write about publishing, self-publishing and crowdfunding.
I am also the author of Argleton, a novelette about a mysterious town that appears on digital maps but doesn’t exist in reality. I self-published via Kickstarter and Amazon Kindle, and am negotiating my way through the publishing world and exploring new business models for entrepreneurial authors along the way.
As a freelance journalist, I have written about social media and technology for FirstPost.com, The Guardian, CIO Magazine and Computer Weekly.

Kickstarter And The Shipping Problem

There’s a great post by Fred Hicks, based on this Google+ discussion, about the problem with the cost of shipping Kickstarter rewards internationally, and how those costs can cause real problems for Kickstarter projects. Although Hicks is based in the US, the issues he discusses are just as relevant for people in other countries too.

The Kickstarter project under discussion, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, is a role-playing game book, and its publisher, Vigilance Press, has had to set the cost of shipping a hardback book internationally from the US at $45. This has annoyed international backers, as it set the minimum cost of the hardback book at $85 for international backers, as opposed to just $40 for Americans.

Now whilst it’s true to say that there are fulfilment companies that will probably get you slightly cheaper deals, these only become economic at volume and won’t be able to shave all that much off the cost of sending a heavy hardback by airmail. But it’s not just the cost of shipping that’s a problem, it’s that high international shipping costs decrease the proportion of the amount pledged that actually goes towards supporting you and your work, says Hicks:

With Kickstarter, because shipping gets wrapped up in the pledge, you have to watch your percentages. You could have a $25 tier that ships domestically, and a $50 tier that ships internationally, and that’s great — to an extent — if the international folks are willing to pay it.

But suppose that the $25 domestic tier represents $5 shipping + $20 contribution to the goal, and the $50 international tier represents $30 shipping + $20 contribution to the goal. When an international backer pledges that $50, they’re putting the project $50 closer to its funding mark… while only ACTUALLY contributing $20. Compare this to two domestic backers pledging $25 each and actually contributing $40 towards the goal. So in this example scenario the international backer’s pledge is only “worth” half a domestic pledge in terms of actual revenue contribution after shipping. This can be super problematic if the budgeting on the project, and its ultimate funding goal, is built around the scenario of a pledge that’s 80% meat, 20% shipping.

As Hicks says, it’s difficult to bill separately for shipping once the Kickstarter project is over, not just because it would be a horrible logistical nightmare, but also because people will have made a commitment to the project without thinking about how high the shipping costs could be, and asking for another $45 is likely to upset them.

Shipping costs have long been kludgy on Kickstarter. For a long time, project owners just had to ask people to pledge some amount more to cover shipping and hope that they did. Now there is at least a way to set up shipping costs, but the only options are:

Shipping anywhere in the world

Shipping within [your home country] only

No shipping involved

If you ship anywhere, you then have to pick a flat fee to cover all destinations that aren’t your home turf. In the UK at least, it’s significantly cheaper to ship to Europe than it is to ship to Australia. The Royal Mail only has four postal zones: UK, Europe, World Zone 1 (the Americas, Africa, Middle East, Asia, etc), World Zone 2 (Australia, New Zealand, etc). It actually wouldn’t be that difficult to set up options for those four zones, which would give backers a fairer deal on shipping.

That, of course, doesn’t solve the problem that it can be very expensive to ship heavy or bulky things internationally. And books can be very, very heavy. So when you’re setting up your Kickstarter project, you must know how big and heavy your end product is going to be, and work out your shipping as precisely as you can. Then you’ll have to ask yourself whether you want to be sending it internationally, or whether you can find a different, lighter, reward for your international backers.

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Wonderful article and thanks for getting this information out there! I think it has serious value to businesses and individuals considering Kickstarters that involve shipping products internationally.

Btw, I’m the writer and developer for Tianxia, the product that prompted this discussion. Since this we’ve been able to secure a international distributor that’s reduced the cost for UK and European backers (you can find those on our KS page), but yeah, it’s been a real stumbling block due to the costs of shipping product internationally.

Hi Jack. Great to hear you’ve been able to find an international distributor! I have looked at fulfilment before, but that only makes sense for projects over a certain size, or if you’re planning on doing a lot of similar projects. For small book projects, it’s a potentially significant problem, so I’m glad that you and your colleagues brought this issue to light!

Indeed. And we still couldn’t get a better deal with outside Europe. So yes, it’s currently more expensive for us to ship to Canada than the UK and such. Which is logically maddening, but the current state of shipping concerns, especially for smaller shipments.

Fred Hicks’s post is very thorough and thought-provoking with regards to international shipping for Kickstarter rewards. I would like to point out the solution that Monte Cook Games is taking for physical rewards on the kickstarter for The Strange RPG. Each physical item comes with a credit towards shipping, $10 for a harcover book like the core rulebook for example. When the time comes to ship a physical reward, backers can choose the shipping method they would like and pay the difference if it’s more than the credit on that item. It’s a compromise that’s worth consideration and watching how it works for MCG.

That’s an interesting solution, Hollis, and I’d like to know how people react when it comes time to make a decision on shipping. A $10 credit isn’t going to make much of a dent on a $40 shipping bill, and I can imagine some people might not realise that they’ll have to pay more to actually get their book. I also have to ask, are the logistics on this not going to be a nightmare?

Hi, James Dawsey here, owner and publisher of Vigilance Press (the creators of the Tianxia project). I’m very happy Fred decided to share our conversation on his blog when I asked him, because I knew this was critical information for other small publishers with big dreams. I’ve learned a lot about the perils of international shipping and Kickstarter through this first Kickstarter, and I’m already planning what I’ll do differently next time. I absolutely suggest hitting the link for his full blog post because he covers a lot of great wrinkles that people don’t always consider on both the Shipping issue itself and how Kickstarter lumps your shipping fees with the rest of the total bids, effectively forcing you to either overcharge for shipping or eat Kickstarter’s percentage.

Not quite sure I see your logic here. Having spoken to shipping/fulfilment companies here in the UK, I can tell you that international shipping is indeed expensive and inefficient at small scales, whether you do it yourself or get a fulfilment companies to do it – after all, they have their own costs to cover. They can shave a bit of money off postage costs, but the trouble of setting things up and minimum order amounts mean that you aren’t going to benefit until you’ve hit a certain level. If you want to explain here in the comments how Shipwire, for whom I assume you either work or in some way represent, gets round this for small scale shipping, be my guest.

Hi Suw! An interesting alternative to the shipping dilemma is to make your book small enough to “fly under the radar” of postal regulations. Our MiniBük product, when between 64 and 88 pages, is under 1/4″ thick. It mails with a 2 ounce stamp domestically (66 cents) and for under $2 internationally. We provide a durable 4 1/8″ x 6 1/8 envelope that begs no customs documentation or special compliance. We bulk ship to foreign countries using USPS Priority Flat rate cartons (we’ve bulk shipped to Europe, Asia and Canada this way). These can hold 210 64 page books and ship internationally for about $65 + customs fees. An 88 page title can hold 8,000 to 12,000 words. www.minibuk.com